46 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



skylark's rapturous trill, usually as it flies to and fro 

 overhead, but sometimes from the ground or from the 

 branch of a tree. Other songs which are less familiar 

 attract our notice from time to time. Sometimes from 

 the tops of the ash-poles in the copse by the low water- 

 meadows, comes a monotonous piping, "trui, trui, 

 trui," like a poor imitation of the thrush's notes. It 

 is the Redwing's song, little heard or noticed in England 

 but said to be a tuneful and much appreciated accom- 

 paniment of the Northern summer. And one bright 

 February day, genial as April, we heard proceeding 

 from the alders by the brook, a merry, rippling string 

 of notes ending With a long drawn out " ize-e-e." The 

 glass showed the gold-banded wing and green back of 

 a cock Siskin. There was quite a party of them, some 

 hanging from the twigs extracting the seed from the 

 alder-cones. From one, then from another, sometimes 

 from three at once, would come the brisk linnet-like 

 song with, as finish, the squeal which attested its 

 authorship. It was the only occasion upon which 

 we have heard the siskin singing in a state of freedom ; 

 as a cage-bird its song is familiar enough. 



In February, the spring notes of the various tits 

 resound through the woods, most persistent of bird 

 voices. Heard at intervals in the late autumn, then 

 silenced by the frost, they now break out into a 

 hundred variations of the same refrain, with all the 

 spirit and energy inspired by the milder weather and 



